


sincerely, yours

by Kuro_Ko, Sephirron



Series: of wings & crowns [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/F, Letters, Light Angst, Post-War, edelgrid, ingrid birthday weekend 2021, writing with buddies is the best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:07:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28505703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kuro_Ko/pseuds/Kuro_Ko, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sephirron/pseuds/Sephirron
Summary: Ingrid is back to Galatea after years of war, following her Emperor’s orders. She carries the memories of darker times and letters from her father. While on her mission, she reads a keepsake letter from Edelgard and she is reminded of the path she chose and in her heart, an everlasting wish she will live for the rest of her life.Ingrid Birthday Weekend 2021.
Relationships: Ingrid Brandl Galatea/Edelgard von Hresvelg
Series: of wings & crowns [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2088078
Comments: 4
Kudos: 32





	sincerely, yours

The polished tables on the floor were the same, worn by steps that came and went for many generations, two centuries of people or maybe more that served the Kingdom faithfully. People that were knights and counselors to the Blaiddyd family.

Two centuries that ended with her.

Lúin, the one to sever the strings that pulled her life into a maelstrom she had never wished to enter.

Her uniform was red and black, the blazon of the Black Eagles identifying her as part of the elite force of the Emperor, the Black Eagle Strike Force, her steps sure as she made her way through the Galatea household.

_ My dear daughter, the future of our family depends on you… _

Yes, he was right. The future of their family depended on her if they were to put it in her hands instead of taking it in theirs. It had and she had taken her decision.

_ “Our future is the only one we can truly forge and change, don’t you think, Ingrid?” _

Edelgard had shown her that her actions were meant to change her own path, not her family’s or her father’s.

_ I have sent a new list of suitable matches for you to consider… _

All of them nobles with no crest but enough money to buy her family status and her county food and security.

_ “Crests have brought nothing but pain and injustices to Fódlan and I’m set to right it.” _

Ingrid had listened to that years ago, looking at her hands and the crest that lived in her blood as a curse she had been praised for.

_ I expect your letter with your thoughts regarding this soon… _

She opened the door to the house’s study with more force than needed.

_ I pray to the Goddess so she guides you in this difficult decision. _

_ “The church has held hostage the Goddess and used her name to perpetuate their own selfish desires, their flawed system that we can’t longer tolerate.” _

Ingrid, for a second, was listening to the words in the throne room alongside the Adrestrian army instead in her family house studio.

She was once more trembling and following her heart instead of the letters her father had sent for months and months.

In a sense, the Goddess or the lack of her had guided her into her decision. Her own light had blessed her and guided her, winds that made her heart soar and the wings of Astra dart through the air as the Emperor’s blight, red and black, the Adrestrian thunder that couldn’t be shot down from the sky.

For the Emperor and her vision, Ingrid had bent her knee and bowed her loyalty and love.

The studio was just as she remembered it, illuminated by the afternoon sun, with a neat, heavy desk in the middle and the banner of House Galatea behind it. There were stacks of documents in organized piles on top of it, documents that had already been sorted out by her siblings and everything that was deemed important was there.

Or, as Ingrid had put it “if it has the Galatea, Kingdom, or Imperial seal, put it there.” A practical way to sort documents quickly and fairly well. Well enough at least for her to go through them, deciding what to take back to her Majesty and to Hubert to inspect and decide what was the relationship of the county with other states in the Kingdom as well its finances and diplomatic affairs.

Paperwork Ingrid didn’t care about but knew how important they could be for Edelgard.

She sat down, making sure that her sword didn’t get in the way as she did. It was mostly decorative, a sword and a dagger instead of her lance. Lúin would be useless in a closed space like that room, and she was skilled enough with a sword to make her way through to Astra and the security and familiarity of the sky.

Back to the place where her freedom, her wish and her will merged into one.

_ One day, House Galatea will be yours and your husband’s to rule. You must understand how difficult it is for a ruler, a noble, to be just. As a crest bearer, your duty is to the family and the county. As my duty is to you and your siblings...  _

They would haunt her to the end of her life, wouldn’t they? Those words she could see at night, when slumber was elusive and the night filled with whispers that she couldn’t tell apart.

Ingrid pushed forward, despite her fears, despite her old grudges, despite her old grievings. The knight in red and black with green eyes, a forest after the winter rain hidden in them. 

It would take her all afternoon to go through them and decide what was worth Edelgard's and Hubert’s time. The documents, most of them letters or treaties, ranged from decades ago to no older than a couple of months, when the Imperial forces had almost breached the Kingdom’s frontiers and occupied most of its territory. 

She had been there, pressing forward- never looking into Galatea, the country that had remained neutral to their advance-next to the Emperor she had bowed loyalty to.

The woman she loved and the one she would follow no matter the circumstances or the odds.

Ingrid fetched the document signed by the Emperor from the inner pocket of her jacket. An official ordinance that imbued her with the Emperor’s authority. She could speak for her Majesty and act on her behalf.

It was both a display of power and a heavy responsibility she had entrusted Ingrid with.

Next to it, however, carefully folded and cared for, it was the personal letter Edelgard had given her in Ingrid’s quarters the night before her departure, one she had asked her not to open until she was back at Galatea and felt as if the weight of her house and her family was too much in her shoulders.

Ingrid didn’t think it was that much to bear for the moment, but she was curious and longed for Edelgard, reading her beautiful, precise handwriting would make her ache heart but feel content nonetheless.

She left the ordinance, unfolded and minimally decorated by the Adrestrian emblems, on the desk next to the other documents waiting for her and opened the letter with sure, swift, and eager fingers. Her smile was wide and open when she read the first line.

_ My knight, _

_ I know how hard it is to go back to your roots, to the place that wanted you to be something so different from what you truly are, what your heart wanted to be. Yet, there you are for my sake. I feel extremely fortunate and somewhat guilty for sending you back to Galatea in this mission. _

Ingrid stopped and snorted, she would have gone to the gates of Hell itself if she asked, blazing with eternal fire or buried under black ice of a forever snow-covered land, it wouldn’t matter.

Ingrid would be there, her shield and her lance, the point of the blade that was to open a path for the Emperor of Fódlan.

_ I know you have repeated countless times by now that I shouldn’t shy from sending you away, that I shouldn’t keep myself from assigning you difficult, taxing, or dangerous missions. _

_ How you wish to be treated the same as anybody else under my command. I find it jarring, you’re such a capable warrior, such a loyal knight. You’re the one I love and I don’t wish for any harm to come your way. _

_ You’re one of the few that can speak for me and in whom I trust blindly. _

_ I miss you, but I won’t be in the way for you to become what you wish to become. Your life is yours to decide and, if you have pledged your alliance and your loyalty to the Emperor of Fódlan, I will fulfill your wishes, my knight. _

_ I await for your safe return impatiently. _

_ Edelgard. _

Ingrid’s fingers trembled when she finished reading the letter, her eyes blurry and her smile now conflicted. She bit her lower lip, before shaking her head and chuckling humorlessly.

How different were these letters, these words from the ones she had grown accustomed to. How they had brought her joy instead of grief, hope instead of despair. They inspired her to be the wind that blew from the mountain to the ocean, instead of the shackles that had kept her a prisoner in her own mind.

The words, maybe written with the same love behind, the same cherish and care for her, were so different.

The letters she, slowly, had learned to love instead of despise, had learned to cherish and embrace instead of reject and fear.

The letters that spoke to Ingrid, the knight, and not Ingrid, the pawn.

With a heavy yet content heart she set to work. Time disappeared from her mind as she reviewed treaty after treaty, signature after signature. Documents her ancestors had written decades ago and still held true. Galatea hadn’t changed its policies for years and Ingrid thought that the famine she remembered so bitterly had to do with that little fact, alongside the poor weather conditions and soil of the county.

As she worked through the documents she realized that most of them were important and needed to be reviewed and rewritten. How preposterous was that a piece of paper written for those already departed were the rules that the living lived by.

The long nights and the endless hours that Hubert, Ferdinand, Dorothea, Petra and Edelgard spent reviewing terms and discussing clauses made more sense now, alongside the sheer amount of coffee the court could consume in a week.

When she looked through the window, Ingrid was surprised to see that the sun had almost set and she was squinting to read the letters scribbled in old paper. She sighed and stretched, her back popping and her neck cracking.

She took the documents she hadn’t considered important and opened the empty drawers to put them in there. She filled the drawers absentmindedly, stacking neat piles of old, invalid documents or letters from nobles that had wanted the Galatea favor so long ago.

Ingrid closed the first drawer and repeated the process with the second and third one. When she opened the last one she was surprised to see there were pages already on that one. Intrigued, she raked up the papers, noticing that they were somewhat recent.

She recognized her father’s handwriting, and with a cold drop of realization going down her spine, her own handwriting. Her fingers found a single letter and time froze around her as she pulled it up to her eyes, the dim light around her suffocating.

Ingrid looked at the letter she had just fished from the bottom drawer. She remembered it.

As if time was moldable and it could stretch and lengthen itself as it pleased. As if she was back in Garreg Mach, after a day in the training fields, showered and tired. Upset and conflicted, the letter closed and ominous, heavy as the world and the future in her hands.

Ingrid closed her eyes, the letter she sent back was open and the paper had aged, but it was the same sentiment, it was still the same distress she couldn’t help but feel and despair.

And suddenly, like the room had faded to mist, a memory had opened up in the fog. The room wasn’t the Galatea household but in the clearing, her own room back at the monastery. It had been a spring day, the sun painted her room in streaks through the glass windows. The knight-in-training had just returned from an intense training session with the Black Eagles.

Edelgard had positively beat her, with a pretty smile and flourish of her snow hair that made Ingrid’s heart sputter. She had even forgotten that she would probably have a huge bruise on her back from being struck down so swiftly. The ache didn’t really matter as it instantly disappeared with Edelgard’s touch, her gloved hand reaching out to help her rise. 

“Are you alright, Ingrid?” she asked lightly. 

Ingrid had rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. “Yes, of course. You’re quite the opponent, Edelgard.”

Edelgard tossed her hair over her shoulder once again, an air of satisfaction swirling around her from her victory. “Well. You’re not so bad yourself. As allies, we’d be a force to be reckoned with, surely.”

Ingrid hummed in thought, her head tilting towards the bright blue sky and the sun warmed her cheeks. Her green eyes glittered beneath the light at the possibility - but it wasn’t possible, really. Her duty was to the Kingdom and its family, as a knight she had an obligation. But she supposed, if for a moment her world could be free of such chains, then-

“I agree. I feel as though we could take on the world.”

Edelgard had given her a curious look then that caused Ingrid to tilt her head in question. She wondered if it was something she had said. But the lilac of Edelgard’s eyes had cleared and it was quickly replaced with a small smile that wiped away what Ingrid was thinking of in the first place.

Class and training had been dismissed and Ingrid had returned to her room to change. It was then she spotted a letter that had been delivered to her desk. There was dread that immediately weighed in her stomach - she needn’t open the envelope or look at the wax seal to know who it was from. With a deep sigh, she shedded her jacket and laid it across her bed before taking a seat at her desk. She took the envelope between shaky fingers and paused. Sometimes she truly wondered why she bothered with these things. She had come to Garreg Mach in search of becoming a true knight, to hone her skills that would rival any enemy to the Kingdom, the King, and its citizens. 

Her father still hadn’t understood that. She didn’t think he ever would and his letters of complete disregard didn’t help.

But it was helpless either way - he would never listen to her. Despite all her resolve and all her sense of duty and honor, in the end, she wondered if she could ever really defy his wishes. It would feel selfish to do so. The way she grew up, the smiles on her siblings’ faces in the biting cold, and the warmth of her parents’ embrace over the bland meals. Tears would claw at her throat at the thought of losing them but in the same moment, how long could she truly live in the shadows of the bleak future her father had set out for her?

The letter was unfolded and Ingrid didn’t know what else she could’ve possibly expected. In her father’s scrawl, she saw lists and lists of various suitors that he thought were perfect matches for her. This noble was the eldest son, truly charming, and a skilled soldier. This noble was cunning, decisive, and had a high sense of duty. This noble was-

She huffed and shifted her eyes downwards to the ends of the letter where the list of pompous suitors stopped. The shadows became darker and hovered over her shoulders like the grip of night. 

_ Ingrid, I wish you wouldn’t dawdle on such important decisions. Is it perhaps because you still cling to the memory of Glenn? I assure you that he would want you to be happy and if you would give it a chance, your mother and I have faith that you would find happiness and bring our House glory. Glenn would be proud of you.  _

_ We only want what is best for you. I expect your swift reply so we can make arrangements. _

_ Father. _

Ingrid’s anger and grief was never loud. Even when Glenn passed away, her screams had been silent beneath the roaring fire of a burning kingdom. Despite every letter that her father had sent her that grated on her nerves and grasped at her heart, her anger only left her as a warm exhale of a breath. But using him against her was low and even lower than that. It took years before she could feel the heat of the sun again. She had felt so numb that even hovering in the space between the ocean and the sky did nothing to exhilarate her. That space was white, empty. But now, she was seeing red. 

_ Red… _

And as quickly as the memory appeared before her, her room disappeared around her along with her anger. For a split second, the red she was seeing was not the frantic, spiteful response that she scribbled on a parchment in reply. It wasn’t the sharp strokes in black ink that she just  _ wished _ that it would give her father some semblance of the way he had always wounded her with such callous words and dreams that were akin to a nightmare. 

No, it wasn’t any of those things but the red of Edelgard’s cape. It flashed by her after she had practically tossed her letter into the outgoing letters bin.

_ “Ingrid, are you alright? You looked rather upset.”  _

_ Ingrid blinked, not knowing that the turmoil in her heart made it up to her face and she didn’t know what to say. And she didn’t get a chance to say anything before Edelgard was tugging on her hand. _

_ “Would you like some tea? I just made some.”  _

And then it was the red of Edelgard’s cheeks when a blush would blossom like the crimson flowers she loved so much. 

_ “How did you know they were my favorite?” _

_ Ingrid only said what had made sense to her. “They reminded me of… you.” _

Then the red faded into an expanse of white, like the space she hovered in the sky. But it felt everything but numb, the image of Edelgard’s smile embracing her in that place that was once empty. The snow white of her hair wasn’t warm but like the world after rain. Gentle and quiet despite her rapid snare of her heart. And in that silent moment, she could hear Edelgard’s wish chime in her heart.

_ “I love you. Stay with me.” _

Ingrid’s breath hitched her throat and the hollow night returned. The letter returned to the drawer as she gazed around the expanse of the house. It was once her home but it felt nothing but foreign to her. The war had ended and she wondered just when it was throughout all these years that Edelgard’s heart had made room for her to make a home where her nightmares could no longer reach her. 

When, through all the battles, tears, and scars, had her wish changed? 

Her wish to be a knight and to live and die in service to a liege - because what else was there? 

In an empty home, Ingrid laughed, the first one the wooden walls had heard in years. It was no longer where she belonged, not for a very long time. Through the window, she saw the velvet dusk and an ocean of stars, knowing that somewhere Edelgard was looking at the sky that she had learned to love with the wind in her hair, and Ingrid at her back. She remembered Edelgard’s first flight and that even the emperor couldn’t hide her apprehension and tense limbs as Astra climbed higher and higher into the clouds.

Ingrid would giggle behind her and Edelgard sent her a withering look from over her shoulder. 

For once, in that space between ocean and sky, she was happy. For once, she wanted something else. 

“Ingrid?” Edelgard said quietly. 

She slowed Astra to a gentle soar, before peering over Edelgard’s shoulder from behind her. “What is it, El?”

“The stars are out, is there anything you’d wish for?”

“I didn’t think you were the type to believe in such things,” Ingrid teased.

“Humor me,” Edelgard said simply. 

Ingrid returned to silence as she thought on the question. One day, she’d ask Edelgard what it was about her that made the words come from Ingrid’s lips so easily, as if in every moment she spent with Edelgard, she knew the secrets of the world. 

“I… want to live.”

“Simple as that, hm?” the emperor remarked but they both knew - she was relieved.

Ingrid took her hand then and squeezed. “You’re the one that made it simple.”

Edelgard’s mouth opened but no sound came out. Her pink lips closed and she nodded. Ingrid kissed her between the sky above and the sea below, a wish in her heart that burned to the ends of her fingertips as they grazed her lover’s smooth cheek.

A wish to stay with Edelgard, forever for all her days. 

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday weekend to our dearest pegasus knight, Ingrid! It’s a party and we couldn’t miss it - especially with friends! We’re super excited to collab for the next 3 days to give you some rarepair Edelgrid goodness! We really hope you enjoy it and stay with us for the weekend!
> 
> Any comments, kudos, feedback are very very appreciated!
> 
> You can find us on Twitter here: [Moni](https://twitter.com/EdelgardEisner), [Kuro](https://twitter.com/KuroKR_)


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